Harnessing Creativity
cre·a·tiv·i·ty | Noun | the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality, characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions.
"Everybody has a creative potential, and from the moment you can express this creative potential, you can start changing the world." - Paulo Coelho de Souza
Creativity is a word that is most often used to describe artists and often dismissed as something one inherently has or doesn't have. Science argues that everyone is wired to create but in different ways, not everyone is meant to be an artist but that doesn't mean you are not creative. It would be easy to say that people simply have different amounts of creativity; however, I believe some people are more in tune with their creative power than others. If that is the case, how does one tap into their creative power? Let's take a look at four areas you should consider if you are looking to strengthen your creative muscle.
Slow Down and Observe
Absorbing information around you is the fodder used for future creativity. When you are speaking, writing, or thinking of the next thing to say or do, you are burning through creative reserves, and you may potentially miss a critical piece of information that could provide the best path forward. People in tune with their creativity spend a great deal of time gathering all of the details around them – generally without a purpose and they load that information into their respective tool kits for use later.
Examples of what this may look like:
A sculptor may see items with different textures and add them to their physical tool kit for use on a project that hasn't even been conceived.
A leader may take the time to evaluate, recognize, and empathize with others' emotions, known as emotional intelligence. This is a powerful tool of observation; by identifying the emotional states of those around you one is able to determine how to best interact with them.
A product manager may spend time reading articles, conducting informational interviews, and evaluating the product roadmap. Their ability to consume the information around them allows them to think critically. This ability to analyze, parse through context, and gather facts will allow them to thoroughly understand the problem.
How can you improve your observation skills?
Be Present. It's easy to be super distracted with so much going on in the world around us. Whether you're in a meeting or a one-to-one conversation, ensure you focus on the moment. This will allow you to take in the relevant information and will allow you to contribute in a more meaningful way. Just remember, consistently thinking about what you are going to say next while the other person is talking is not being present.
Evaluate Relevance. There are loose threads in the workplace that could be connected to create a better product, discover larger proficiencies, ensure duplication reduction, etc. Time spent thinking through how details relate to the bigger picture will allow you to find these loose threads. Big picture thinking will enable you to understand issues more thoroughly and will allow you to develop holistic solutions.
Ask for Feedback. Gathering information from other perspectives helps you to round out the information you are gathering. The act of evaluating feedback allows you to confront biases in your thinking processes. You may even find that the thread you need to connect with bubbles up in the information shared by others.
Creative people are great observers, and they catch details by using all of their senses. Many creative people spend time in simple observation, as creativity is a product of taking in information to be used later!
"Creativity involves breaking out of expected patterns in order to look at things in a different way." - Edward de Bono
Make More Time to Shower
Millions of people will find themselves with an epiphany in the car while driving or struck with brilliance while showering. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as a shower thought; they seemingly come out of nowhere and range from simple solutions to life-changing decisions.
In the Netflix documentary The Creative Brain, they spend time discussing the need for the brain to have time to wander. Research has proved that daydreaming gives your brain time to stimulate connections in the information you have gathered and provide insights you may not have considered previously. The brain is a pattern-finding powerhouse, especially when left to its own devices.
So how do you create more shower moments? First, you have to make the time. I have coached many professionals on creating 'thinking time' by blocking time on your schedule to take a stroll through the recesses of your mind. It can be helpful to add a mundane task to the time, such as casual reading, light exercise, gaming, throwing a ball at the wall while staring at the ceiling, crocheting, or something that doesn't require focused thought. These kinds of tasks let your brain do what it does best, find patterns, and create organization.
The immediate reaction I receive when I tell people to book 'thinking time' is a fear that they are 'wasting time' – an understandable thought in the 'high production' mindset of most of our employees. A 2012 study suggested daydreaming can lead to sudden connections and insights (aka Shower Thoughts) as it involves a highly active brain state. So yes, you could schedule time in front of a whiteboard (that feels like work, right?); however, focused thought is generally counterintuitive to the thinking that sparks creativity (like daydreaming). If it feels too much to book a full block of time, try taking a five-minute break every hour to daydream instead. Once you have your epiphany, book whiteboarding time, this way, you can flesh it out properly.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things." – Steve Jobs
Flexibility is Essential
You may find that your most creative moments happen in the middle of the night, in the shower as previously stated, or in the morning before the sunrise; embrace the natural rhythms of your life to capitalize on the power of creativity. You may also find you need to switch up your environment as well – this can be as simple as going outside, booking another room, or grabbing a coffee. If you are a people leader or a company looking to employ highly creative people, you may very well need to consider flexible working hours or office spaces.
Flexibility is also crucial as you look to tackle a problem. Changing your view of the situation can dramatically change how you might attempt to solve the problem. Examples of this might include things such as:
Using customer experience surveys in addition to CRM data to determine what directions you might take to update the User Interface (UI).
Making the time to conduct a cross-functional journey mapping exercise to determine pain points and the potential impact of changes to the customer acquisition journey.
Asking provocative questions to understand the impact of a program across teams outside of your area of influence allows you to search for loose threads before implementation begins.
Creative people are not quick to act (this doesn't mean they can't work under timelines). Instead, they tend to take a moment to evaluate and question their initial thoughts before proceeding. Often, they shake things up not for the desire of chaos but to determine a creative solution or direction.
Flexibility is improved as you broaden your horizons; this occurs through work and life experience, travel, reading, etc. Ensuring that you are considering multiple points of view is critical to creativity. You may not possess that experience yourself; but even if you do be sure to surround yourself with diverse people. This act will ensure you have a sounding board to work through creating solutions.
Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones." - Bruce Garrabrandt
Embrace Risk and Failure
Steven Kotler wrote "Creatives fail, and the really good ones fail often," in a contribution on Einstein for Forbes. The chore of doing creative work is taking risks, but having the resilience enough to get back up and try again. Those that have a mature innovative skillset may even thrive in risk-taking behaviors personally and professionally. Presenting ideas that seem to veer right when everyone is turning left, feel awkward or unproven, or provide a complicated answer to a seemingly insurmountable problem can be terrifying. Using your network as a sounding board and ensuring that you use a collaborative process will ensure that the risk you are taking has safety nets in place. However, there is no doubt that it can still be unsettling as you step into new territory.
The more risk you take, the easier it gets, especially when you find success. Failure, when you embrace it, can be very beneficial to the creative process. It will sting, but it's not the pain of failure that is important it's what you do after. It takes focused effort to change failures into opportunities. You accomplish this by assessing what went wrong and coming up with creative ways to prevent the same mistake from happening again or improving the process overall. Examples of this might include:
A new marketing campaign did not yield the results anticipated; in conducting a full analysis of the data, it was determined that the failure occurred due to confusing information on the shop's web page. This provided an opportunity to reimagine the acquisition funnel. (Simply blaming the campaign and moving to a new campaign approach may not have yielded better results given the acquisition funnel concerns.)
A newly launched social channel became overrun with racist commentary; in working to fix the problem through anti-toxicity software, an opportunity to join an anti-toxicity collation presented itself. (Simply removing the offensive posts through moderation may have rid you of the current problem but does nothing to address the systematic problem, the reputation of the company, or the heart of your employees.)
A psychology field called post-traumatic growth suggests that people can use failure and trauma to fuel creative growth. The research has found that trauma can help people grow in interpersonal relationships and personal strength and see new possibilities. When failure occurs, embrace it, and determine what opportunities exist - just be sure you've taken a moment to heal.
In choosing to do things differently, you will need to accept the possibility of uncertainty and failure. However, it is precisely this risk that opens up the possibility of real innovation as you push forward, be sure to get back up and try again.
"Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun." -- Mary Lou Cook
In Summary
Creativity opens up opportunities for problem-solving, achieving goals, and finding unlikely perspectives that push innovation further. Creativity is one of the most important characteristics of effective leaders as it fosters a successful and healthy workplace environment. The most important thing to remember is that creativity lives in all of us; to harness it, you will need to practice observation, give your brain space to think, create flexibility in how you view a problem and embrace risk. Follow these simple guidelines, and you will be well on your way to harnessing your creativity.
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